Chapter 10. The Reader's Name

I

Since that night, the moon has thrice filled and thinned.

Strictly speaking, a little more time has passed. But inside me the way time is marked changed at the boundary of the night I first took up Contura. Until then I had measured time in weight, mirrors, the eyes of other people. Now I measure it in something else.

In the mornings, when I wake, the first thing I do is measure myself.

Shoulder, chest, waist, hip. The rings of light circle the body, the numbers rise, the outline stands up. The same thing every morning. A habit that did not exist before that day. Coh called it keeping the freshness. The body’s story, left alone, grows old. Yesterday’s me and today’s me are already a little different. So as not to miss that difference.

When I finish, I move my body on the tatami. The training Sono taught me, for building a core. Press-ups. Squats. Breathing that opens the back. The body that at first could only tremble has, by degrees, begun to lift. The Core Number — FFMI — is still low. Still far behind Sono. But every day, by the smallest margin, the number moves. And the direction it moves is a direction I had never known.

Not down. Up.

It was strange. Until now I had thought of moving the body as punishment. A penance for having eaten too much. A ritual to justify the self in the mirror. But now it is different. To build a core is to run a core through one’s own outline. Not to accuse the outward shape, but to stack strength on the inside. That difference had begun to change the moving of the body, from penance — into something close to pleasure.

At the studio I take the clients in. Before, I used to assess the body. The distortion of posture, the tone of muscle, the distribution of fat. Produce numbers, set tasks, draw up a plan. That was the work, I had thought.

Now, a little different.

When a client comes in, first I listen. Before the numbers, the story. Last week Misaki said, Lately I can barely stand to look in the mirror. The me of before would have answered, Then let’s start with twice-weekly care. But that day I saw the mark on Misaki’s belly. The mark that had held a life, split open, and closed again. The medal Coh had read.

“Misaki-san,” I said. “You don’t have to look in the mirror. Just tell me a little.”

Misaki wept a little. And on her way out she laughed and said, My body feels lighter somehow. Though her size had not changed by a millimetre.

I understood then. Numbers do not save people. Stories do. The numbers are only the letters by which the story is delivered.

II

The first to see the change in me was Tadashi Kurosawa.

The owner of Life Compass. Fifty-two. Close-cropped grey hair, deep lines. A quiet man, who said only what was needful. He could often be found standing in the corner of the training floor, arms folded, watching the staff move. A former sports trainer. No one had a more certain eye for the body.

One Wednesday, after close, Kurosawa called me.

“Himuro.”

“Yes.”

“Come here a moment.”

The staff space. Kurosawa sat on a folding chair and motioned for me to sit too. I knelt, seiza, and waited.

“You’ve been different lately.”

”…Sir?”

“You’ve started listening to the clients. Before, the measuring came first. Now the listening does.”

My heart gave a jump. Kurosawa did not know about Contura. He shouldn’t. I had told no one. And yet, only by watching me work, he had found it.

“And,” Kurosawa went on, “your shoulders.”

“My shoulders, sir.”

“You don’t draw them in anymore. You used to, in the middle of a lesson — the shoulders would creep up. When you tensed, you’d contract. You were always like that. The last few weeks — they’re open.”

I let my eyes fall to my own shoulders. It was true. Since Contura had read my shoulders — drawn in so that no one would have to be blamed — I had been letting them down on purpose. And he had seen it.

“You’ve got hold of something.” Kurosawa said it low. Not a question. A confirmation.

“Got hold of, or —” I searched. “The way I see bodies has changed, a little.”

“You can’t lie, can you, Himuro.” Kurosawa almost laughed. “Your eyes are different. Before, they were the eyes of someone afraid. When you looked at a person’s body, it looked as if you were afraid of something. Now you’re looking. Just — looking.”

I was silent. I couldn’t bluff him. This man read eyes the same way he read bodies.

“I’m not trying to interrogate you.” Kurosawa stood. “Everyone has their own way. If what you’ve found is changing you, that’s fine. But — don’t mistake one thing.”

“Mistake, sir.”

“What you’ve got hold of is a tool. For measuring people. A tool can save a person, and a tool can bind them. — Don’t misuse it.”

I stood. “Kurosawa-san.”

“Hm?”

“Have you always looked at bodies this way?”

Kurosawa looked at the ceiling. The fluorescent light cast shadows in his lines.

“This is my teacher’s saying.” Kurosawa spoke slowly. ”—— The body does not lie. But numbers do.”

My breath stopped.

The body does not lie. Numbers lie.

The phrase fell behind my temples. It was the same thing Contura had been telling me. The same thing Coh had been telling me. Numbers are only the letters of a story. Look at the numbers alone, and a person is judged. But the body itself does not lie. It only tells the story that is there.

”…The same.” I murmured it without meaning to.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Thank you. I’ll keep those words.”

Kurosawa gave me an odd character look. But he didn’t press further. That was his kindness.

III

It was that night.

After close, I was alone, cleaning the studio. Rolling the mats, racking the dumbbells, wiping the floor. Sono had left early today. Kurosawa was in the office, finishing paperwork.

It was past nine. Aoyama at night, one street in from the main road, goes surprisingly quiet.

The automatic door made a sound.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed.”

I turned, rag still in hand.

A boy stood in the entrance.

Nineteen, I learned later. At the time he looked both younger and older than that. A little taller than me. Slim. Black hoodie, jeans. Hood down, short black hair. The face was well-made, but somehow unfocused — the eyes of someone too tired for his age, or of someone who saw through everything.

“I know you’re closed,” the boy said. Low, flat voice. “I have business with you.”

“With me.”

“Himuro Seri. Aren’t you.”

He had said my name. I had never seen his face. And yet he carried himself as if he knew me.

”…Who are you?”

“Kanade Kuze (久世奏).” The boy smiled thinly. “Freelance programmer. Just passing by.”

Liar, my instinct said. A person passing by does not come into a closed studio and ask for someone by name. But there was no air of an enemy about him. Only — something hollow. Something he was carrying.

“May I help you.”

Kuze didn’t answer. He took one step in. And his eyes went to the rag in my hand and, beside it, the lockers. On top of the locker I had set down the phone. The old phone, with Contura in it.

Kuze’s gaze stopped on that phone.

It was an instant. But I saw it. His eyes narrowed, just a little. As if recognising something.

“Nice phone.” Kuze said it as if it were nothing. “Old.”

“It was my grandmother’s. A keepsake.”

“You take good care of it.”

The conversation was strange. A freelance programmer who was just passing by had no reason to take interest in an unknown trainer’s old phone. But Kuze did not try to touch it. He was only — confirming that it was there.

IV

“Himuro-san.” Kuze went abruptly to the point. “May I give you a piece of advice.”

“Yes.”

“That app —” Kuze gestured with his chin at the phone on the locker. ”— isn’t an ordinary app. Be careful.”

My heart stopped.

App. This boy knew about Contura.

”…What do you know.”

“I can’t say much. Only.” Kuze dropped his voice a shade. “Readers pay a price. Keep that in mind.”

Readers.

When that word came out, I was certain. This boy knew about Contura. Not only knew — he knew of the Outline Art, of the word Reader, of the world I had been learning from Coh.

“Do you —” I kept my voice from shaking. “Do you know Readers?”

Kuze did not answer. Instead he laughed, a little. A lonely smile.

“Himuro-san. People are drawn to those who can read the body’s story. One after another, people who are suffering will come to find you. That is the Reader’s destiny — and also the trap.”

“Trap.”

“People who want their stories read gather around the Reader. The Reader takes on every one of those stories. Until her own body is worn to nothing. — The previous one was like that, too.”

The previous one. My grandmother.

“Did you know my grandmother?”

“A little.” Kuze looked away. “She — stopped reading, in the end. Because the price was too great.”

I lost my words. Coh had said that my grandmother had stopped near the end. He had not answered why. But this boy — he carried himself as if he knew the reason.

“Tell me.” I pushed down the urge to shout. “What happened to her.”

Kuze shook his head.

“Not now. You are still missing something, Himuro-san.”

“Missing something.”

“The strength to keep your own outline. If the Reader does not keep measuring her own story before reading others, the outline thins. You are all right, for now. But once people begin to gather —”

Kuze broke off there. With his hand in his pocket, he took nothing out.

“I’ll see you again.” Kuze said. “When you’re stronger.”

“Wait.”

“I won’t. Readers don’t wait.”

With that, Kuze turned on his heel. The automatic door opened and closed. Into the night of Aoyama the boy dissolved away.

V

I stood there, blank.

A drop of water fell from the rag in my hand onto the floor.

“Seri.”

A voice. Not from the phone. From behind my temples. Coh.

“Seri, are you all right.”

”…Coh.”

“I heard. All of that boy’s words.”

I leaned against the lockers and put a hand on my knee. My legs were shaking.

“Coh. Who is he.”

Coh was silent for a moment. The residue of light wavered.

”—— I don’t know.” Coh chose his words carefully. “But he knows. About the Outline Art. About Readers. And about the price. — Perhaps he knows even what I have not yet told you.”

“Price.” I repeated. “What price does a Reader pay.”

”…I cannot say now.”

“Why.”

“Because you are not strong enough yet. I will say the same as that boy. Seri, you have only just begun to walk as a Reader. The matter of the price is for a little further on.”

“But my grandmother —”

“Sae left this in your hands at the end. She left it to you because she believed you would, in time, arrive. There’s no need to rush. Only — do not forget. The Reader’s power is a gift. And at the same time — heavy.”

Coh’s voice was gentle. But behind the gentleness I felt a shadow. The Reader’s price. The reason my grandmother had stopped reading. What Coh would not yet say.

Fear sank in my chest, cold as a stone.

VI

But.

I wiped the drop from the floor. And slowly, I stood up.

The fear was there. The weight of the word price was there. But more than that, what surfaced in my chest were other faces.

Misaki’s face. The face that had wept and smiled when the postpartum body was read as a medal.

Rin’s face. The face gone wide-eyed, hearing built to run far.

Sono’s face. The face that had laughed and clapped my back, saying a core can be built.

And Kurosawa’s words. The body does not lie. But numbers do.

The bodies of those people — I had listened, properly, to what they were telling. And those people had taken back their own stories. — No. Not taken back. They had only noticed what had been in them from the first. I had only read it aloud. Only that.

Even so, if someone had been, even a little, saved —

Kuze’s warning grazed my head. A Reader pays a price. But — was there any way to listen to a person’s story without paying a price? If you truly faced another person’s pain, how could you not give some part of yourself up? It was the same for anyone, Reader or not. A trainer. A friend. A family. When we truly see someone, we hand over a piece of ourselves.

If so, fear alone would not move me forward. If someone had been saved, even a little — then the price was worth paying.

I picked up the phone. The screen stayed dark. But there was a faint warmth in my palm. The presence of Coh.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“I won’t stop reading. Whatever the price. I’m afraid now. But I want to listen, properly, to what people’s bodies tell. I won’t run. That much, I won’t waver on.”

Coh was quiet for a while. Then he spoke, softly.

“Seri. You are worthy of the Reader’s name.”

The words soaked in. Reader. The name my grandmother had inherited and left to me. I may not yet be fully worthy of it. But — I could at least say that I had begun to take it on as my own.

VII

When I left the studio, a night wind brushed my cheek.

I walked toward the Omotesandō station. The streetlamps threw long shadows on the asphalt. My shadow was not drawing in its shoulders.

A thought came.

Kuze had said: One after another, people who are suffering will come to find you.

The words drifted in the night air like a prophecy. Misaki. Rin. — The people I had met so far might be only the doorway. An athlete retired and bereft of his body, a model at war with mirrors, a man who had ruined his back carrying someone, a person wavering between body and gender, a person fighting age and metabolism, twins with the same genes living different lives —. People whose bodies hold stories, everywhere.

Will they come to me?

I am still weak. I don’t understand the price. But —

I went down the stairs into the station. The crowded platform of the last train. Each person carrying their own body home. In each of them, a story. An outline.

I gripped the phone in my pocket. The warmth of Contura.

It’s all right. I won’t run.

I will listen, properly, to what the body tells.

—— The next morning, when I opened the studio door, a woman I did not know was sitting in the lobby. Mid-forties, I guessed. A tight, strained smile. Her hands knitted and unknitted on her knees.

“Excuse me,” the woman said, looking up. “I heard you could — talk to someone, here, about one’s body —”

I looked at the set of her shoulders, rigid. And, inside me, I felt Coh’s presence shift, faintly.

Another story had arrived.

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(Part II — Six Stories the Body Tells)

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